Help a Noob build his dream BF2/Shooter game rig

[Highmodulus]

Hi all, thanks for looking at my topic. Been lurking for quite a while, and wanted to ask for your opinion.

Background: Long, long time gamer who always used Dell rigs (I know, I know). But my 3 year old machine is chugging, and really didn't have the specs to run the HL2 Lost Coast demo. So I have decided to finally build a dedicated gaming rig (with other light duties, net, office ect). Have a friend who works IT tech support to help me build it up.

Also, I prefer dealing with high quality companies like Newegg if possible (even if it costs a few extra bucks).

After kicking around the forums here and reading reviews at Newegg here are some of the parts I am looking at. Note, I am a complete and utter noob as far as OC'ing anything.

Budget is somewhat flexible, as I have got the sign-off from the wife (woot!). I would prefer AMD, NVIDIA and need 2 Gigs because BF2 is a memory pig. But- I am always open to better ideas!

I got in on the sweet 74Gig WD Raptor deal posted in Hotdeals for my main drive- just need a storage drive now.

Parts:

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: CAC-T05-UW

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

BFG Tech BFGR78256GTOC Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: TPII-550

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA4000BNBOX - Retail

CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model Twinx2048-3200c2pt - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JD 320GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

LITE-ON Black IDE DVD Burner Model SOHW-1693S Black - Retail
Model #: SOHW-1693S Black

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS SB0350 8 (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - OEM

Microsoft Windows XP Professional With Service Pack 2 - OEM
Model #: E85-03013

Thanks in a advance for making my rig better and me smarter.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Welcome to AT (or the posting portion of it anyway)

If you haven't seen mechbgon's guide yet, check it out for what's involved with putting together a new system. It would be a good learning experience to build it yourself rather than having a friend do it.

Have you thought about doing Opteron or X2 for your processor?

 

[Highmodulus]

Thanks!

On the build, I am hoping to do it with him so he can show me the ropes. Going to kick him a some cash and a sixer on the side for his time. My thought is it is probably best not to fly solo on a complete build the first time. Thanks for the link- I will review it.

Also looking at the excellent motherboard review thread someone did here- and may update my MB choices then too.

Open to all AMD processor choices (at least those not costing $1000!), but seeing I am a OC noob that may be a factor.

 

[GamerExpress]

Well a few major things I would change, The MOBO is all wrong, don't go SLI!!! Go with an Epox 9npa+ Ultra.

The CPU I would go with an X2 3800, but the 4000+ is great also.

I would try to upgrade to a 7800GTX

I would for sure switch to some OCZ Platinum EL Rev. 2

The other stuff is personal preference I guess.

 

[Ike0069]

Welcome to AT.

I would look at the X2 4400+. It's ~$500, but it's basically two 3700's on one chip. Very powerful CPU that's excellent for gaming, while handily outperforming the 4000+ when you are multi-tasking.

Personally, I wouldn't go with ASUS here. My first choice is the MSI Neo4, then the Epox EP-9NPA+. Both are excellent boards that are very fast and stable, while having very good OC'ing potential if/when you want to give that a try.

If you can afford it, the 7800 GTX is a significantly faster than the GT version. With the 512MB version due out soon, the 256MB GTX's may drop in price to make them even a better deal. Or, you can go all out and get the 512MB version. That card looks to be amazing.

Personally, I see no reason to get LL RAM. Corsair VS RAM is a much better deal IMO. For ~$190, you can get 2GB of RAM that has some OC'ing potential. It really just depends on your final budget.

The other choices all look very good.

 

[Highmodulus]

Wow, good tips! Newegg has a few deals on the EVGA ($475), XFX ($459) and ASUS 7800 ($479) GTX boards- about $100 more then the 7800 GT's worth it?

Will look at a Epox board and those X2 processors too.

Thanks for your help! I appreciate any helps and tips you have.

 

[Ctrackstar126]

Dual Core would be a good choice

 

[Mik3y]

if you want dual-core, get the Opteron 165. Its about $300 and has the average oc of at least 2.4ghz, which is the fastest dual-core proc that amd has to offer now. Not to mention, it's hella cheap compared to the A64 X2 line.

 

[Highmodulus]

On the Epox MB, I saw some complaints in Newegg about no use Support. Is that an issue?

Also, on the memory front. Is it worth the extra cash to use someone like Crucial instead?

 

[w00t]

i would go with the evga 7800gt copper myself
psu i would go seasonic s12 500-600W
for sure go dual core singel core is dying fast get opteron 165-170.
do not get corsair xms waste of cash get ocz value ram or ocz platuim maybe even crucial ballstix
dvd burner is ok but nec and benq have the best budget dvd burners check them out benQ 1640 is good.
sounds card you could get the x-fi i hear the sounds is amazing i am a headset guy so i cant really go into detail.

 

[Shizzle]

whats your total price so far mate? and is it American dollars?

 

[Fraggable]

Don't forget your CPU cooler!! You do not want to stick with the stock HSF assembly if you're planning to OC. I prefer the Zalman 7700's myself but lots of people prefer the XP-90c.

If I were you building this system for gaming, I'd definitely go for the 7800GTX even if it meant cutting back a bit on your processor choice. You'll get more out of the GPU than you would out of the couple hundred MHz difference in processor speed.

And don't go cheap on RAM. It's critical to OCing.

 

[ribbon13]

$144 - Seasonic S12-600
The most important part of any system is the PSU. It's the foundation for all else. review1 review2

$406 - AMD OSA170CDBOX
Opteron 165 is cool and all, but because it kicks so much ass, the supply of em has vanished. Get this instead.

2x$108 - Gigaram GR9053-1GB/433/SA
A lot better than CAS3 DDR400 valueram, and not that expensive.

$115 - DFI Ultra-D
Awesome price for this fine motherboard.

$47 - BenQ DW1640
The best overall burner out right now.

 

[Highmodulus]

Ribbon 13- thanks for the information, that MB looks particularly sweet.

Do you know if it the the RAM or the PS will work well with it, or do I need to check that site?

If I went with that motherboard what other changes would you suggest?

 

[ribbon13]

All 5 of the things I listed should work well with each other.

Other changes? We covered psu, cpu, ram, motherboard, and burner.

Case: That looks decent enough. It will match the S12-600 well for having a quiet system with it's 120mm fan.

GPU: Now you need to select a video card, but one very important factor in determining what's best that I'm suprised no one has asked yet, what sort of monitor will you be getting?

Storage drive: that seems good enough.

Sound card: This

That about covers it

 

[Highmodulus]

Thanks all- two more parts ordered:

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail from Newegg on the sweet 10 hour sale (thanks Ribbon13!)

Then went to DFI-Street and one of the PS' they highly reccommended was the:

OCZ PowerStream OCZ520ADJSLI ATX, BTX, SATA, P4 and EPS12V 520W Power Supply - Retail which had a $20 mail-in rebate too.

Add that to the WD 74 Gig Raptor 10000 RPM SATA main drive.

Now to figure out the memory and such?

How about that case?

Thanks again for all your help!!!

 

[ribbon13]

well, if the ram i listed before isn't good enough, get the best

2x$162 - OCZ5001024EBPE

 

[Highmodulus]

Thanks again Ribbon 13!

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: Fraggable
Don't forget your CPU cooler!! You do not want to stick with the stock HSF assembly if you're planning to OC. I prefer the Zalman 7700's myself but lots of people prefer the XP-90c.

If I were you building this system for gaming, I'd definitely go for the 7800GTX even if it meant cutting back a bit on your processor choice. You'll get more out of the GPU than you would out of the couple hundred MHz difference in processor speed.

And don't go cheap on RAM. It's critical to OCing.

Are you trying to say you con't OC if you have a stock HSF? Complete rubbish. Yes, there are better coolers out there, but the newest AMD CPU's run cool enought to be OC'd very well even with stock cooling.

RAM is absolutely not criticl to OC'ing. :roll: That's why we have dividers.

 

[thecrecarc]

i thought he saiud he wont be OCing? ....

 

[Highmodulus]

If I do any OCing it will be later on and very light- I am a complete noob at that stuff from running Dell's before this. Ocing a Dell is a recipe for disaster (as is buying one lately evidently. . .).

Monitor I am currently running a Dell P992 19" CRT Trintron monitor. If I replace it- I would be looking to run at gaming quality LCD of around 19-20 inches.

 

[Highmodulus]

A few more quick questions (thanks for your patience!):

Processor:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail $400

AMD Opteron 170 Dual-Core 2.0GHz 1MB (per core) 64/32-Bit Socket 939 (Retail Box-w-Fan)- $400

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX - Retail $497

The concern is I may not be doing too much OC-ing to start.

-- On this video card:

XFX PVT70FUNF7 Geforce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card with 450MHz Core and 1250MHz Memory - Retail
Model #: PVT70FUNF7 $459.00

I have not heard of XFX, any worries on this card? Price seems pretty good (newegg deal)

Nice ten hour sale on this monitor- what do you think?


ViewSonic VX924 Black/Silver 19" 3ms gray-to-gray (avg.); 6ms white-black-white ... - Retail

* 1280x1024
* 550:1
* D-Sub DVI

$359 with free three day shipping

Thanks!

 

[Highmodulus]

Two more pieces ordered:

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Platinum System Memory Model OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K - Retail (sweet $27 Mail in Rebate, and DFI-Street approved)

And ordered the BenQ Burner which Ribbon13 recommended as well.

Just need to settle on the processor and video card. Then add in the storage drive, case and see if I want to go LCD or stick with the Trinitron. Oh, I should probably get and mouse and keyboard- thoughts on those?

Thanks all!